Quality of service in personal injury market ‘crucial’
Mystery shoppers have uncovered a series of poor responses from personal injury (PI) lawyers, including inappropriate replies, slowness to follow-up and a lack of enthusiasm.
Posing as potential clients, mystery shoppers hired by legal marketing collective First4Lawyers contacted 50 law firms both by telephone and through their website, ranking each firm’s efforts to gain their business.
One mystery shopper revealed: ‘I said it was an accident at work, to which she replied, “lovely, thank you,” with a level of enthusiasm that was entirely inappropriate.’ Another asked for the receptionist’s name three times and was told it didn’t matter because ‘she was going to lunch’.
Where the shopper left a message and the firm had to call back, an astonishing 23% of firms did not do so for more than two days, or at all. On the other hand, 35% of firms had called back within 15 minutes.
The shoppers also reported the lack of a sense that the firm really wanted the work, with only 52% of the firms attempting to add value or ‘go further’ for the potential client, and firms often failing to explain their value to the client and usually not offering to send further information or make a follow-up call.
Nevertheless, four-fifths of firms were ‘warm and engaging’ overall, according to the shoppers. Some 84% of web enquiries led to a telephone conversation. When asked to rate the likelihood of recommending the firm to others on a scale of 1-10, 62% of firms received an 8, 9 or perfect 10.
Qamar Anwar, First4Lawyers’s managing director, said: ‘Low-value PI is an unusual market in that there is no real price competition.
‘So, the quality of service, from the moment the phone rings or the email pings, is crucial. This is especially important given legal regulators’ efforts to encourage consumers to shop around for a lawyer.’
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